The Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series. Every single one of them. I've never met anyone who has played these games who wasn't brought to tears by their respective ends. Nothing else has managed to make me feel this much for non-human characters. Haven't been able to play the 3DS game since it's not released here yet, but I'm trying to kill my expectations; the standards were so incomparably high with the previous games that this'll have to be an enormous drop-off.

Other than that, I'd definitely say Dragon Quest V. Anyone who has played the game knows what part I'm talking about. Unbelievably saddening, especially since it is immediately followed by a really hopeless part of the story. Although I prefer DQIV on the whole, V manages the tragic element considerably better.

I see that a bunch of people have mentioned the Ace Attorney games, but I'm not sure if "emotional" is really the right word there. They affect me quite a bit, but somehow the thrilling aspect seems to be quite a bit more important than the "emotion".

The thrilling aspect is more important than emotion, I agree, but don't say that taking down the culprit in the last case of Trials and Tribulations isn't very emotional.

Almost every single last case in any Phoenix Wright game is pretty sad. You don't get a truly happy ending, but instead, you end up re-opening past wounds and learning the bitter background of everyone involved. The "special case" of the first Phoenix Wright (The one where you're with Emma, not Maya) had Edgeworth resigning at the very end, while a bunch of characters such as the cowboy and Emma's sister are jailed. Even though everyone cheers in the end, well, it's not that happy.

Journey, Heavy Rain and Arkham City(that ending)

I would not say that almost every single case in the Ace Attorney series are sad. I think that the only cases that have that sad feeling are the final cases, 4th case in T&T. That is just me of course. JFA had among the worst cases in the series, they made me happy when I finished them (except the final case).

When you are talking about Phoenix Wright, are you including Apollo Justice?

I didn't know about this, that's great news although a bit too far way, still a Syberia 3 would be brilliant.

It's sad reading all these posts, it makes me think these people aren't older than 20 and haven't expeirenced proper emotional games.

It looks like people are mostly listing games they liked that had a brilliant action packed cinematic ending or parts that were superbly cinematic, that has nothing to do with emotions in terms of what the OP means I suspect.

No, I did not say that every single case is sad. I said "almost every single last case". The third one in Trials and Tribulations was great from beginning to end; it was clever, witty and fun. It had its obviously sad part, but it did not break the fun that case was.  I was just arguing the fact that yes, indeed, Phoenix Wright games are pretty tragic sometimes.

Yup. I'm refering to the Ace Attorney saga. That does include Apollo, even though I didn't like it as much as Phoenix, I thought the character itself was awesome and it tried to refresh the series. I also include Investigations (The one with Edgeworth). There's Ace Attorney 5 coming now with Phoenix again as the main character; but I hope Apollo comes back too (And he does according to a Japanese magazine that featured a very mature, but changed Apollo).

Completely disagree.

The emotional is definitely in a sad AND thrilling way, but primarily sad. The music, the characters and the despair and mystery all add to it and not in the "action" way either.

If you play all the games as they are intended, they follow on and it's simply sublime in it's balance between a bit of action and enough story moving forward as things unfold.

In fact, as my previous post outline - I'm outright horrified at the games people have listed here as they are clearly games where the action and cinematic atmosphere has overwhelmed the person with hardly any proper "emotion" to speak of.

If people are listing Heavy Rain on their top list they are obviously in their teens still or haven't played any good games from the 90s at all or even the early 2000s, sure games like that are good and they pull on the emotional senses somewhat, but mostly it's just cinematic superficial stuff. There's no real "oh nooooooooo" moment in a more restrained way.

That or they're just all action junkies who dare I say it...don't know what real emotions are (shadow of the colossus!!!! Uncharted!!! FarCry 3!!!....it's just sad to even read)

Branch out people, this isn't about taste you really can't have expeirneced emotional games if that's the best you can list!

Uncharted 3 & Metal Gear Solid 4 :')

Some other games would be Journey and Bioshock Infinite

From last gen: Shadow of the Colossus and MGS3

Oh, there's plenty of sad moments in the games. Sadness is all over the place. But I still wouldn't call it emotional. I mean, as you mentioned, everybody cheers in the end. That's the thng. Ace Attorney consistently has this forward-looking attitude. You constantly have to set aside the emotion and carry on. I mean, really early in the first game, you're given a pretty nasty shock, but you're not allowed to feel bad about it. You have to go through the case and get the bad guy, forgetting about how bad what happened might make you feel. In a way, that's one of my favorite things about AA.

In that T&T case you mentioned, although finding out who the actual culprit is rather emotional, the thrill seems to wash over it completely. I remember, at the end of that case, I was just desperately caught up in the action and didn't have time to feel sad about the culprit. In fact, that very last piece of evdence you submit is just so thrilling, so "in your face" (is that a spoiler?), that I'm too excited to feel bad about it.

Most other stories, in their emotional moments, let you soak in the sorrow completely. They dwell on the sadness for a while and emphasize how bad the characters are feeling. Ace Attorney isn't like that. You're either too busy getting the bad guy or trying to ignore the sadness and be cheery anyway to actually feel emotional.

Let me understand this properly... you're saying that Shadow of the Colossus is not a fundamentally - exquisitely - emotional game?